For the past few days, I’ve been trying to teach myself how to use Adobe Illustrator for graphic design. My experience with vector-based graphics (and any sort of graphic artwork in general), has been very limited, and is in particular one part of the web design/development environment that I really need improvement in.

I’ve always shyed away from graphic design, mostly because I found it tricky to learn, and just didn’t bother to put forth the effort. As a result, I think my web design has suffered, since almost anything I come up with is noticeable devoid of any complex, good-looking graphics. Well, I’ve decided enough is enough, and am really trying to learn (at least the basics, whatever that means) with Adobe Illustrator. While there may be better programs out there for learning, Adobe products seem to be the de facto standard out there, so starting from scratch, it seems like a good way to go.

So far, I’ve just been searching the web for resources, and haven’t bought a book. I don’t tend to buy computer-related books, (unless it’s a useful reference), as things tend to get out of date fast and render your purchase, at the very least, less accurate. While stuff on the Internet might be less of a complete course than a book, it’s good for getting started and seeing whether I’ll be able to keep up interest. A quick google search for “adobe illustrator tutorials” turned up this set of tutorials, which are going to serve as my starting point. While they are easy, and I’m sure all the Illustrator gurus out there are laughing at their simplicity, that’s the whole point for me – to find something easy to learn that can pique my interest for self-learning.

Hopefully, this will turn out better than that time I tried to learn to play guitar.